One of the last Newsnight episodes presented by Jeremy Paxman showed him chairing a discussion between Francis Fukuyama, the American political scientist, and Simon Schama, the British historian. Fukuyama is best known for a 1992 book in which he opined that the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the apparent triumph of liberal democracy represented “the end of history”.

I didn’t buy the theory at the time, and I certainly don’t buy it now. But mainstream political discourse in our part of the world would certainly have us believe that there is not much room for changing the way society operates.

Until recently, the tone adopted by the coalition Government was dominated by austerity and the need for public spending cuts. The fact is that most of them enjoy downsizing the public sector for ideological reasons.

Nevertheless, as we get closer to the general election, Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians have majored on the economic recovery we are told is under way.

They are hoping for a feelgood factor to carry them to victory next May, but the fact that most people don’t see the recovery as impacting on them, coupled with the continuing public sector spending cuts, makes the attempt less than convincing. If they are re-elected, we can expect austerity to continue indefinitely.

The only alternative party of government, Labour, has also made it clear that we cannot expect an expansion of public spending.

When I spoke to Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, he confirmed that his deputy, Chris Leslie, was asking colleagues to come up with cuts proposals to be implemented in the event the election is won.

More cuts are necessary, said Ed, because George Osborne’s cuts strategy hasn’t worked. We still have to tackle the deficit.

There are distinguished Nobel Prize-winning economists – Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz – who would disagree with Balls, adducing evidence that, in historic terms, the size of the UK’s deficit is nothing to get wound up by, and certainly no reason to shy away from Keynesian public works aimed at stimulating the economy.

Even Ed Balls, however, seems to disagree with the cuts agenda when it comes to infrastructure investment. He was, after all, talking to me on the construction site for a new £45m campus for Cardiff and Vale College, £20m of which is being provided by the Welsh Government.

Yet we are expected to come to terms with the fact that public spending as a whole will be tight for the foreseeable future, whichever government is elected. The same approach is replicated in much of the world.

In Europe it’s the orthodoxy. The brief moment of hope when Hollande was elected president of France fizzled out when he failed to argue the case for change with EU leaders – a more fundamental betrayal of the promise he made to voters even than Nick Clegg’s U-turn on student tuition fees.

Conferences devoted to blue sky thinking are being organised to discuss the longer-term implications of ongoing spending cuts, while people are being told by councils that if they want a cherished public service to survive, they will have to run it themselves.

Margaret Thatcher may no longer be with us, but her refrain that there is no alternative has become the totemic political slogan of the early 21st century. But is not such fatalism a major factor in the apathy and disillusionment felt by many about politics?

Why engage with something that’s not susceptible to change? And wasn’t Fukuyama right after all? We’ve lived through history, our options have narrowed, and it is now at an end.

Devolution is a chimera: in Wales, despite the valiant efforts through government intervention to create job opportunities for young people, economic indicators like Gross Value Added per head continue place us low down the prosperity league.

My deepest instinct, however, is to reject the view that nothing can be changed. I believe we need to move beyond such passivity and look for models that provide a credible alternative narrative.

Recently I had the good fortune to meet Juan José Ibarretxe, who served as Lehendakari (president) of the Basque Country in Spain for 10 years until 2009. He was in Wales to participate in a presentation at the Hay Festival by himself and colleagues on the theme “how to change a country”.

I met him in Cardiff and soon became drawn in by his enthusiasm to spread the word about what had been achieved by his regional government, which had trusted its instincts and not followed what has turned out to be the disastrous path pursued by the Spanish Government.

I’ve visited the Basque Country a few times over the years. On the Spanish side of the border, the coastal city of San Sebastian is a very pleasant coastal city with a beautiful bay and a lovely main square. On one occasion my virtually non-existent Spanish was rendered useless when I was accosted by a Basque-speaking elderly woman who appeared to be speaking passionately about an open-air event. There was a mixture of folk dancing and fiery speeches, and it gradually dawned on me that I had stumbled upon a public “welcome home” party for a member of the violent nationalist organisation ETA.

I was struck by the fervent patriotism of everyone involved.

The Lehendakari, as Adam Price informed me he was still known as, was bald and sprightly with a beret on the table in front of him.

His talk was being delivered that evening with some amazing statistical evidence as a starting point. In the 28 years since Spain joined the EU, the GDP per head in the Basque Country has risen from under 90% of the EU average to 129%. I was keen to find out how that had been possible.

The first tip to Wales, intriguingly, was not a specifically economic one but a cultural one. We were advised to protect the integrity of our culture. The Basque language is one of the oldest in Europe, as is Welsh. His advice suggested the Welsh language should be encouraged to thrive.

But the term “culture” is not restricted to language, so anything else that makes Wales a culturally distinctive place should be regarded as positive too – including our art, our literature, our music, our landscape and our cuisine. And our sport. “Build up your personality” is how the Lehendakari put it.

He told me: “In relation to social, political and economic issues, the most important thing is our own culture. If you don’t have your own culture, your own personality, it doesn’t work.”

Another important element in driving change is the need to get everyone on board: the concept of altogether or not at all. “Attitude is everything,” he said.

“If you want to, you can change. But to make change, you need to involve everyone – the public sector, the private sector, the whole of society. Everyone must be signed up to the vision and collaboration is crucial.”

My conversation with him left me convinced that we need to broaden our outlook and break free from what has become the economic orthodoxy.

The more equal society that has been built in the Basque Country, the disparities in the UK between the rich and the poor get greater and greater. Instead of the social cohesion being forged in one part of north east Spain, we in the UK have a reverse Robin Hood Government that is taking from the poor and giving more to the rich.

The trickle down of prosperity has dried up and nothing is being done to get it flowing again.